Pure-O? HOCD? READ ME.

probably my last post here, just came by to say this because i know many wonder if people ever overcome hocd:

i went through Cognitive behavioral therapy (technically im still doing it as there are 2 sessions left) for 1 1/2 years roughly, taking 45 + 15 = 60 one hour sessions with a VERY good therapist. i was really lucky with her, she is the best!

i started having HOCD roughly 2 1/2 years ago, it started during a very bad phase of my life, i suffered from alot of emotional stress due to feeling alone and other things. i was at first diagnosed with OCD (Rumination) but later the diagnosis was changed to general anxiety disorder (i suffered from a few different anxieties e.g. fear of being sick/my mind not working properly/social anxiety) because i could not say whether my fear of being gay was reasonable or not (going by ICD-10 this is the decisive difference between anxiety disorders and obsessive disorders).

first i went through stationary therapy (8 weeks) where i also met my current therapist who continued working with me after leaving the station. (again: EXTREMLY LUCKY as she allowed me to not go through the waiting queue for therapy but start immediatly with her).

over the course of the time i was able to decrease my anxieties (every single one i had) by a great margin.

some of my HOCD symptoms were:
- constantly wondering whether i was gay or not
- checking out males to see whether i was attracted or not
- being anxious when seeing a friend in a coat (the logic was basically coat -> well dressed -> attractive -> OH NO I WILL LIKE HIM)
- testing with gay porn vs straight porn
- numb penis
- numb orgasm
- having the thought in my had that i had to kiss another man (e.g. when i spoke with friends).
- having this "feeling" on my face when seeing someone (male) attractive.
- out of nowhere thinking i was in love with a male friend of mine


most of these symptoms are completely gone (numb penis, numb orgasms, constant checking, porn testing, that "feeling" on my face)
others have vastly decreased and i can deal with them easily (the thought of kissing someone for example). i can again go through life without being bothered.


the flipping point was the realization that towards man that "attraction" was all in my mind. there was no bodily attraction as i felt it with girls. with girls i just get this feeling i wanna impress them and stuff out of INSTINCT even when i dont want it. also i felt the NATURAL desire to touch them, unlike with man where that also was a "dry" thought in my head.
example: im chilling with male friends and suddenly an attractive girl enters i suddenly behave differently because i have the instinct to impress her. before she enters no such feeling surfaces.


by repeatedly comparing the feelings i had and have when being together with a female to the way i feel and act when being around men i was able to step by step realize the true nature of my fear.


the key really is exposition and reflection. it can be beat! conquer your fear(s)!

Hello everybody

I saw this topic which described a flight and fight respons going bananas and felt that i could have something to add to this.

I am here to give a suggestion and a possible function for the disorder. It bases upon my observation during my process of thinking myself out of this disorder. I had this disorder for 12 years before this. I have posted a topic about this but it has yet not been approved by the moderators.

So on this page i decided to shar my findings. I discovered druing my process that there is a possible mechanism for the primarily obssessive compulsive disorder a.k.a POCD. For me this now is a fact but i cant prove this to anybody so thus ill refer to it as possibility.

The POCD can have a mechanism if we humans have two different types of danger signals but these two amount to the same thing an existential threat. First one is the one we all know the one that often appears when you see a predator that has a taste for your taste for exampel. This signal is the kind that we humans love to avoid or neutralize. Since exposure would result into the inviduals destruction.

Second type of threat that feels identical to the first one that has to do with something very different, your perception. However there is a difference this sensation carries the opposite direction of origin, from within. Eyes that dont see true are "dangerous" because for an example you might miss the predator. Thus the brain can signal this in from of danger. However the behavoir is the opposite here one should allow exposure to this danger not disallow it. And disallowing it will result into an paradox where the reaction aggreagates the problem and the problem aggregates the recation. Because well your eyes see less true the more you belive that something form within will ruin you. Thus the signal intesifies and so do your efforts flight and fight if you are unaware of this. Thus now your eyes see even less true and the process is repeated.

In wake of this discovery have had numerous real practical perfomance increases. A feeling that tells me how true or wrong my eyes may be.

This also explains why not reacting to the thoughts help.

I hope this quick descripition sounds reasonable enough.

I got more detailed descriptions in the topic hopefully it will be approved.

Cheers! And what do you guys think?

Hmm, I've never seen it called primarily obsessive compulsive disorder before. Pocd usually stands for pedo ocd. And "pure o" is obviously a misnomer since they do have compulsions, they just aren't typically visible to others (cognitive, avoidance, etc)

every now and again someone will use the letters POCD in that sense, which confuses the majority of the sufferers on here who uses POCD as a shorthand for pedophilic fears. Every so often we have this come up here.

Thanks for this post. Had to get away from lunch at work a couple of days ago, cause I had to get away from the table cause I couldn't stop thinking about punching one of the women in the face. Been awhile since the last time, but this time it were really stressing me. Thought I had it under control, since it's only been to bad lately. Been struggling with it for awhile, but only a couple of years ago since I found out it were an OCD symptom. Still creaps me out when it happens :'(

Oh yeah. I think of it as confusing the ability to do something wildly inappropriate, with actually doing it. It's like, 'what would stop me from doing it? turns into 'omg I'm afraid I'll do it'. Shouting expletives in an inappropriate venue, hitting/touching/kissing someone, stabbing/shooting the loved one sitting next to you who's blissfully unaware of the thoughts running thru your skull.... been there, done all that many a time.

Hey i just signed up to explain what I have learned from all of this ocd stuff I went through in addition to the original post.

WHY OCD HAPPENS?

We all know that ocd starts from a fear. And thoughts and attention. But I think the part most ppl miss is what the root of what they are afraid of. So for me I went through all kinds of ocd. As far as SOCD, HOCD. And i finally understand why now.The reason is because some dumb thing made you scared of "Being" what you dont want to be. That is the root of all of this. You are scared you are something or could be something you dont want to be. And everytime you have a thought or feeling related to what you dont want to be, you freak out more. Its like its proof to you that you must be the thing. Well its not, I'll explain.

HOW OCD IT HAPPENS

We know that ocd is tied to fear, but not deep enough. Lets take germ ocd ok. Something makes you scared of germs. Anything something you saw, you thought, an experience, whatever. Something made you scared of germs. Now you labeled "germs" a threat. So you brain started figuring out obvious things that had germs so you can avoid them, clean them etc. So you say ok toilets, garbage, door handles. Cool, but now you think where else could germs be, how else could germs hurt me? You are spending too much tike on this now but your brain just responds back to you like ok I'll get to work finding out the way germs could hurt you and where they could be. Eventually you'll need a bubble because your brain is only focus with protecting you from the fear.

But germs are for the most part external so you never turn your fear inward. Now let me ask you. What if you maybe the fear you? Now i want to point out that the way your brain helps prevent something you fear from harming you is through "thoughts" and "attention" you pay attention to things that could harm you and the thoughts about it follow. These are the only two things your mind can do for protection. Pay attention to the harmful subject and generate thoughts about how to relieve you of the threat and fear. So now if you fear "being" something the first thing you do is pay attention to being the way or the thing you dont want to be. Then the thoughts follow. You deem the paying attention and the thoughts evil so they become a fear also. So your brain has to pay attention to them.and think of a way to fix it. But everytime it tries, you say that this too is bad and so your brain loops itself and pays attention to it and begins thinking about it.


Thats why when ppl say dont pay attention, you cant. Because the fact of why you did it in the first place was never resolved. Where did all these thoughts come from? Well some way your attention was placed on the subject. Maybe you saw something, were reminded of something. Maybe your brain was just cycling through random info. But you payed attention to the subject for a split second and the thought followed. Then you payed attention to that and got scared of what it meant you "were" then you never took you attention off of the subject and this cycle began.

HOW TO GET OUT
Well the tc told you its all about attention. But you cant stop paying attention because you dont know what you're afraid of specifically. Every second your scared of what you might think, what you might pay attention too, what you might do, but most importantly what you dont want to be. So you have to stop being scared of being " " fill in the blank. Then your attention will naturally stop focusing on the subject. This could happen to anybody at anytime. Lets say they watched the news the other day about a killer and so today had the thought " how could someone do that? Maybe he eas a regualr guy and something happened. Maybe he was just like me before. " Then you have the thought of doing what the killer did. You dont understand how attention and thoughts correlate so you get scared about why you thought that horrible thing. Welcome to ocd. If you were the things you feared so much your attention wouldnt be fixed to the subject like a hawk watching attention out of fear that there is a 0.01% chance you might be. But remember your attention on any subject will correlate thoughts that flow from said subject. So paying attention to anything is asking your mind to create thoughts about it. And being scared of something will naturally demand your attention. So instead of being scared of not being something. Just know you dont ever WANT to be it and that is why you shouldnt fear it. Then simply carry on.

I want to write a more specific answer. So here it is. You will never stop wanting to be things, which is good! Who would want to be anything horrible even for a second. But you have to. I mean really have to accept how the human mind works! Until the day you die, whenever you think about what you "dont" want to think about, and what you "dont" want to pay attention to. You will immediately pay attention to and think about that thing. Its is just how the brain works. And considering the fact that in life it will always be things you "dont" want to think, see, hear, pay attention to, do or be, you have to accept that you will have thoughts about them and you will pay attention to them. Simply because you dont want to like them. Thats why its up to you to disregard them when they come across your mind in any form. Its what you were doing anyway before ocd. But now you have convinced your self that however they came across your attention and therefore popped into your mind as a thought, is because you like them. If i sat you down and forced you to watch bugs getting stepped on for 1 month straight you would have thoughts about them. Because your attention was focused on the subject for a month! However if you didnt care about the thoughts and persisted with the belief that you only are thinking about it because of what you saw for a month straight they would fade after a while. Life would go on. But as soon as you believed that the thoughts coming into your head meant that you simply liked the idea. Well then now you knock the importance up a bit. Do you see it again in your head. And as a result you loop yourself. Your brain doesnt care if you like or dislike something. It only cares about what you make important. You have made the topic important by placing so much emotion and attention on why you had the thought in the first place. Well if this is the case even if you can trace it back, one day you wont be able to. Then you just have to go on the faith that it was because of something that has nothing to do with you as a person. If you dont. This is where you will stay. Because i guarantee you, bad thoughts will pop into your head, but that doesnt mean that you want them there. But as soon as you start to believe that it does, you will cage yourself in a loop of agony. You have to begin to have faith belief and confidence in yourself, because without it, ocd will strike. But with it, ocd can never harm you again. You must choose in the face of every uncertainty to have belief in yourself. Respond differently than you have been. There are no rules to how you have to respond to a thought. So why are you responding in a manner that brings you pain? Respond in a way that brings you strength. And before long you wont even have to think about it.

How do you overcome HOCD if its habituated in your mind and you think it’s now true?

naturally you will be scared of it because its been there for a while. But you have to really just learn how to be brave and to not fear the subject and it will dissipate the symptoms instantly. But it wont stay. Its like working out after a bad accident. You have to get your body back to regular condition. The same is with the mind. You must exercise your bravery until its indefinitely sustainable.So if you have a thought or notice something you dont like. Sensation etc just remind yourself not to be afraid of the topic and you will be alright. Keep doing it until its a forgotten topic.